In 2021, members of Parliament were among the first in the West to officially condemn Beijing’s repression of Uyghur and other Muslim minorities from China’s Xinjiang province – abuses that include forced labour.
Six weeks before this Uyghur vote, in January, 2021, the Canadian government promised a raft of measures “to address human-rights abuses in Xinjiang,” including “the prohibition of imports of goods produced wholly or in part by forced labour.” This declaration acknowledges, among other things, that the company is “aware of the human-rights situation in Xinjiang and affirms they are not “knowingly sourcing products or services from a supplier implicated in forced labour or other human-rights violations and committing to conduct due diligence on their suppliers in China to ensure there are no such linkages.”To date, according to Global Affairs spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod, eight companies have signed the declaration.
Linden Dales, a Toronto-based lawyer with Conlin Bedard, said to his knowledge Canada has done nothing to prevent goods made with coerced labour from entering this country. “Other than a single interception reported in 2021, which was subsequently released, it appears that the government is simply not enforcing this law.”
Another promise from Ottawa that has yet to bear fruit is a motion in Parliament this year where MPs voted unanimously to urge the Canadian government to accept 10,000 Uyghurs fleeing persecution in China. Those backing the motion included members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, including Mr. Trudeau himself.
Mary Rose Sabater, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said Ottawa “is in the process of developing its implementation plan in response” to the 10,000 refugee motion. She said Ottawa “will have limited capacity to speak publicly about any work it undertakes on this motion to protect all those involved.”